


A Crack In A Heart of Glass

by Kay_fiction



Series: A Heartbeat Between Life and Death [2]
Category: Death Stranding (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Dreams, Gen, Post-Game, Spoilers, Visions, heartman visits a new strange beach, heartsam, if you squint a little - Freeform, kind of, no major spoilers really, sam/heartman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-27
Updated: 2020-02-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:28:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22921021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kay_fiction/pseuds/Kay_fiction
Summary: Heartman 'wakes up' on a strange new Beach with a whisper in his ear.  He doesn't come close enough to find out if it's his family or not.But Sam is waiting when he comes back from the Beach, just in time to help him shake the unease.
Relationships: Sam Porter Bridges & Heartman
Series: A Heartbeat Between Life and Death [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1647367
Comments: 1
Kudos: 26





	A Crack In A Heart of Glass

**Author's Note:**

> So my shorts on tumblr took on a pattern that I've decided to string together under the title "A Beating Heart Between Life and Death".  
> I don't think I'll put them in a particular order, just know that they'll all have a common narrative background. I know I'll reference previous ones in the subsequent shorts I write, so that'll give it a little bit of a linear story to follow, maybe?

_Shhhh_ …..

This trip to the Beach was… peculiar. It felt more like a dream, slow and vague instead of crisp and vivid. He wandered and waded through what felt like a thick fog, clinging and cold.

_Sleep…._

Warmth enveloped him, pushing back the edges of the chill the Beach soaked him with.

**Perimeter Alert. Sam Porter Bridges identified.**

The computer’s warning fell on absent ears.

Heartman opened his eyes, to get his bearings, attempting to break through this veil.

_Shhhhh…._

A soothing voice, a soft caress.

_Shhhh. Sleep, my dear. Just this once, I am near._

_Shhhh….._

_Like a dream, a secret, just for you._

**Administering Shock.**

Heartman shot upright when the AED resuscitated him. Tears immediately spilled forth. He tried to open his logs, to write down his experience but… he just couldn’t, a sob shook him.

“Alianne…” Her name on his lips for the first time in ten long years, his chest ached with the emotions welling inside him. Ten long years of searching for her warmth again and never a single trace…

But her voice, he had heard her voice again, he knew it for certain!

“Uhhh, Heartman?” Sam’s hesitant voice called the scientist back to his surroundings. Heartman startled, but only mildly, sucking in a breath and looking up at the porter.

“Oh, my, Sam…. I must have lost track of your progress.” Heartman immediately opened his chiralgraphic workstation and hurriedly imputed the last Beach experience. His heart monitor chirped annoyingly with his elevated heartbeat.

“Are you alright? I…” Sam, ever at a loss for words, or reluctant to speak them, hesitated. “You seemed a bit distressed, I guess.”

“Oh, no. Please don’t worry, Sam. I found myself…” Curse it but he was having trouble suppressing the truth with only a half truth. “I visited a Beach with a different environment than I have encountered before.”

Sam made a noncommittal “hm” and didn’t pry. It was obvious to the man that Heartman wasn’t being honest, but why the hell should he say anything if the scientist didn’t want to speak of it? Sam pushed to the back of his mind the image of Heartman bolting up in tears with a woman’s name on his lips. Suspicions aside, he could read between the lines.

“Anyway, Heartman,” he gestured to the slightly icy cargo case for a bit of specialized equipment Heartman asked for.

“Ah, yes! Thank you kindly, Sam,” he came over and took in the man’s appearance. “You should thaw before you leave again. Is Lou with Deadman again?”

Reflexively, Sam’s hand touched his own torso, where the pod used to be. “Yeah, she is still having trouble with her digestive system. Traveling with her just isn’t a good idea.”

“I’m sorry to hear you’ve been traveling alone,” Heartman said, and instead of reaching out, as he is always want to do, he turned to the case. “Sit down, please, relax for a bit and let the frost melt off of you.”

Sam sighed reluctantly but he didn’t refuse. He removed his gloves, hat and backpack, then opened the top of the suit. He let it hang at the waist and stretched his bare arms above his head.

Heartman busied himself with the new equipment, his mind otherwise distracted by the last visit to the Beach.

_Shhhh…. Sleep…._

The scientist shook his head, and focused. “Other than what you already mentioned, how is Lou? I will admit to my regrets of not seeing everyone more often…”

Sam settles gingerly on Heartman’s couch, and plucked at his damp shirt with something akin to dismay. “She’s energetic enough, I suppose. Fussy at night though, we usually take turns with her. Monitoring is a big deal since she’s not a… well..”

“Not from a conventional birth,” Heartman offered, with a smile. Sam nodded and shrugged, noting that the scientist was starting to come out of whatever was distressing him. “I really should come back to Capital Knot more often. But I…”

Heartman’s eyes turned to the view of the heart shaped lake as seen from his wall of windows. Sam’s gaze followed, a frown pinching his face.

“Heartman… you know that…” but as aloof and blunt as he was, Sam could not bring himself to shatter that fragile hope. Too many “what-if” scenarios to think about.

Instead, he cleared his throat and said, spontaneously, “I… I could bring her here, sometimes. Fragile could bring her. I’d like…” and he lost his words again. Sam didn’t know quite what he wanted for Lou that Heartman could have to offer.

Heartman’s distant expression came back to Sam as he spoke, and something shifted in him. A tension like anticipation had seized the scientist, but he said hastily, “I wouldn’t want to disrupt their routines, Sam. I returned here for my research and, and to stay out of people’s way. No need fretting over me when there are…”

“Heartman,” Sam’s flat tone stopped the other man’s words. “You have… “ the porter was grasping for the words he couldn’t find, just a feeling that he couldn’t describe. “I don’t know. You’re more… normal, or maybe less professional…”

Heartman’s politely confused smile made Sam’s ears hot with embarrassment. “Look at your lab,” he was grasping for anything now. “Not white and gray walls, it’s comfortable and warm and… there’s things to look at…”

**Five minutes until cardiac arrest.**

At that, the confusion slipped away but the smile deepened. Heartman felt a flutter of affection for Sam and his lack of eloquence, and he understood at last what the porter was trying to say.

“Not sterile and lacking stimuli for the growing mind of a baby, perhaps? I do have experience with babies and children.” Heartman was coming closer, Sam could see the hopeful longing in the way he gestured and spoke.

“Yeah, exactly, and I think it’d be good for her to see other things than the labs and people in white coats. And it would probably be good for you, too.” Sam’s ears burned hot again even as the words turned small and hesitant.

**Two minutes until cardiac arrest.**

“You may be right, Sam.” The scientist admitted.

“You’re always cooped up here alone and everyone asks about you,” Sam mumbled, looking away from the other man. “You’re not as much a burden to…. them as you think, ya know.”

Heartman wondered faintly if that ‘them’ included Sam, as well. At the thought that it might, he felt that flutter again. At the one minute warning he was hurrying to his chair.

“Sam,” Heartman waited until the porter finally looked at him. “Wait for me to return? I’d like more time to talk, perhaps I will prepare a lunch for us?”

**5  
** **4**

“Yeah, sure.”

**3  
** **2**

“I’ll be here.”

**1**

Flatline.

_Shhhh….._

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and constructive criticism is always appreciated. 
> 
> Come find more stuff on my tumblr @ heartshapedstrand.tumblr.com


End file.
